Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is a bacterium that causes Johne's disease, a chronic diarrheal wasting disease in cattle and a chronic wasting disease in sheep and goats. This bacterium has long been suspected to cause Crohn's disease. A diarrheal/wasting illness associated with infection with MAP has also been reported in non-human primates. The viable bacterium is found in commercially available pasteurized milk. In fact, 2.7% of retail pasteurized milk samples purchased in Wisconsin, Minnesota and California were found to contain viable MAP. Because of the prevalence of this organism in the food chain and because Johne's disease is a worldwide zoonosis, it should not be surprising that the first mass screening of the human population in a study done in North India on 26,390 serum samples submitted for multiple medical conditions including diabetes, liver disorders, anemia, thyroid, tuberculosis, typhoid, abdominal disorders, inflammatory illness and ion imbalance, showed that 34% of the samples had evidence of MAP infection by an ELISA antibody test. The same study showed that 12.7% of apparently normal individuals had IS900 PCR evidence of MAP in their blood.
Once an animal is infected, the MAP bacterium grows and multiplies inside the cells of the immune system. The organism is excreted in the feces, and to a lesser extent in milk. Outside the host animal, the bacterium multiplies poorly, but can survive over a year in the environment because of its resistance to heat, cold and the effect of drying. This slow-growing bacterium affects the ileum and causes diarrhea and cachexia. There is no known curative treatment for Johne's disease.
It has been suggested that there may be an association between Crohn's disease (CD) and Johne's disease. Studies have shown an increase in the detection and isolation of MAP in adult Crohn's patients and in children newly diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and that most patients with Crohn's disease may have MAP. Crohn's disease, like Johne's disease, has been treated with antibiotic therapy. However, patients undergoing such treatment for Crohn's disease may have a significant relapse rate and thus such treatments may not be optimal. Favorable results in the treatment of Crohn's disease using conventional therapies may be only around 30 percent.
Therefore, there may be a need for a different and/or more expanded therapy that may be more effective than conventional methods in fighting Crohn's disease and other diseases.